Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

"When exactly, Mrs. Rodway?" Suddenly Morse's voice? too, sounded sharp.

"November the fifth Bonfire Night. Not likely to forget the date, am IT'

"Not quite four years ago then?"

Mrs. Rodway made no further reply.

Chapter Fourteen

Everyone can master a grief but he fiaat has it (SH^v. ESP pounds P. E, Much Ado About Nothing)

"Big thing you've got to remember is that it's a great healer--time. Just give it a while, you'll see."

It was just before lunchtime that same day, in his office at Kidlington Police HQ, that Chief Superintendent Strange thus sought to convey his commiserations to Detective Chief Inspector Phillotson--going on to suggest that an ex-tended period of furlough might well be a good thing after ... well, after things were oven And if anyone could help in any way, Phillotson only had to mention it.

'Frouble with things like this," continued Strange, as he rose from behind his desk and walked round to place a kindly hand on his colleague's shoulder, "is that nothing re-ally helps much at all, does it?"

"I don't know about that, sir. People are being very kind."

"I know, yes. I know." And Strange resumed his seat, contemplating his own kindliness with some gratification.

"You know, sir, I've heard from people I never expected to show much sympathy."

"You have?"

"People like Morse, for instance."

"Morse? When did you see Morse? He told me he was off to Leicester this morning."

"No. He put a note through the letter-box, that's all.

Must have been latish last night it wasn't there when I put the milk-tokens out..."

'Td say 1 probably wrote it in a pub, knowing Morse."

"Does it matter where he wrote it, sir.'?"

"Course not. But I can't imagine him being much com-fort to anybody. He's a pagan, you know that. Got no time for the Church and... Hope and Faith and ail that stuff.

Doesn't even believe in God, let alone in any sort of life af-ter death."

"Bit like some of our Bishops," said Phillotson sadly. "Like some Theology dons in Oxford, too."

"I was still glad to get his letter."

"What did he say?"

"Said what you just said really, sir; said he'd got no faith in the Almighty; said I just ought to forget ail this mumbo-jumbo about meeting... meeting up again in some future life; told me just to accept the troth of it all that she's gone for good and I'll never see her again; told me I'd probably never get over it, and not to take any notice of people who gave you ail this stuff about time healing--"

Phillotson suddenly checked himself, realising what he'd just said.

"Doesn't sound much help to me."

"Do you know, though, in an odd sort of way it was. It was sort of honest. He just said that he was sad, when he heard, and he was thinking of me.... At the end, he said it was always a jolly sight easier in life to face up to the truths than the haif-truths. I'm not quite sure what he meant... but, well, somehow it helps, when I remember what he said."

Phillotson could trust himself to say no more, and he rose to leave.

At the door he turned back. "Did you say Morse went to Leicester this morning?"

'hat's where he said he was going."

"Funny! Odds are I'd have been in Leicester myself. I bet he's gone to see the parents of that lad who killed him-self in Wolsey a year or so ago."

"What's that got to do with things?"

"There were a few newspaper articles, that's all, about the lad, among Mcelum's papers. And a letter from mother. She started it off 'Dear Felix'--as if they'd knov each other pretty well, if you sce what I mean." Strange granted.

"Do you think I should mention it to Morse, sir?"

"No. For Christ's sake don't do that. He's got far many ideas already, you can be sure of that."

Chapter Fifteen

Say, for what were hop-yards meant

Or why was Burton built on Trent?

Oh many a peer of England brews

Livelier liquor than the Muse,

And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God's ways to man

(A. E. HOUSM^N, A Shropshire Lad, LXII)

The Turf Tavern, nestling beneath the old walls of N{ College, Oxford, may be approached from Holywell Stre immediately opposite Holywell Music Room, via a narrc irregularly cobbled lane of mediaeval aspect.

A notice above the entrance advises all patrons (althou: Morse is not a particularly tall man) to mind their hca (DUC OR GROUSe) and inside the rough-stoned, blac beamed rooms the tree connoisseur of beers can seat hi self at one of the small wooden tables and enjoy a fin{ cask-conditioned pint; and it is in order to drink and to and to think that patrons frequent this elusively situated em in a blessedly music--Muzak--free environment.